The Martial Unity

Chapter 3357: Worldly Discrepancies

Mother Vyia’s words were ominous.

They darkened the air despite the bright light of the morning Sun peering through the windows, illuminating the room within her true body.

Rui’s pitch-black eyes sharpened with severity. ”Something greater than us...?”

She nodded, immersed in thought. ”That was its purpose. It was a guardian. I suspect that was the purpose of the manifold, to protect something within the manifold from outside forces.”

Rui frowned. ”...Protect what?”

She shook her head with a mystified expression.

”I haven’t the faintest clue.”

Rui inhaled deeply as the sweet, citrus scent of the pine tree body of the Mother of Nature tickled his nose. The cool winds that blew across the skies brushed past him through the window of the room in a pleasant manner.

Yet, it couldn’t ameliorate the tingling foreboding feeling that Rui felt in his heart.

”It would be a lie to say that I have traveled every inch of the Panama Continent because of how enormous the continent is, but I truly have visited an enormous number of places on this continent. I traveled it continuously for many years, visiting it while we were at war with the Beast Domain,” Rui remarked with a knowing tone. ”I can’t fathom what it is hiding that we don’t know of at this point. Not to mention...”

His expression grew complicated. ”If it has a purpose here, then you’re essentially implying that it didn’t come here by accident, are you not? I had thought that this was an extraordinary case of extraterrestrial life traveling across worlds in a meteorite. An outcome of pure chance. But if it came here with purpose, then...”

His voice trailed off.

He left the obvious unspoken.

Then the arrival of the meteorite in Gaia was not an accident.

It was by design.

Someone or something had sent it to this world for a reason.

Rui couldn’t even fathom, in the slightest, what there could have been. It was so absurd that it was difficult to even parse what the possibilities even were.

”There is much we don’t know,” Mother Vyia remarked with a serious tone. ”But it might be that there is more to this world than meets the eye. To this universe. And it doesn’t strike me as particularly benign a truth, either. My sisters saw hope when they learned of the alien flora specimen. But me...?”

She shook her head.

”I felt just the slightest momentary ominous dread in my stomach.”

Her elder eyes sharpened as she heaved a deep breath.

”I fear that there are forces at play beyond even our power. Forces that could destroy us and everything we hold dear. Perhaps this is connected to what my older sister sensed when she experienced the fear that changed her more than a century ago.”

”In which case, it might be good to bring Mother Maeria into this as well,” Rui realized. ”She might have something to offer that we might not have grasped at yet.”

She shook her head. ”I’m afraid our agreement with the Emperor of Harmony prevents us from sharing it with any outside party, and Mother Maeria isn’t a part of the dark elves. If you want me to do that, you will have to convince your father and allow for an exception in an official capacity. I don’t know, see him allowing that, from what I understand of the brilliant, shrewd emperor of human civilization.”

”It looks like I will have to have a serious conversation with my father after all,” Rui remarked knowingly. ”I will probably have to initiate a more serious investigation into the origin of that alien flora specimen in our world. For that, we will have to learn more about history...”

His gaze shifted back to her.

”History of the true world.”

”We have already shared with your civilization all public information,” Mother Vyia remarked knowingly. ”It appears you haven’t had the opportunity to go through all the literature.”

”I am not a historian.” Rui huffed. ”It’s curious, but not worth my time when I have so many Martial projects awaiting me to complete them. I am a Martial Artist and the greatest guardian of human civilization. I fulfill things associated with those identities and leave everything else to everybody else. For the most part, anyway.”

She smiled. ”...I see. None of the six paths is as intricately associated with violence as the Martial Path is. It appears that there is no such thing as a non-combatant cultivator of the Martial Path, unlike for the six paths.”

”The concept isn’t even coherent,” Rui remarked, shaking his head.

”In that case, let me give you a brief breakdown of the history of our world outside of your manifold,” she remarked, as she twirled her finger, turning her attention to the living wood of the table. The shape of the surface of the living table shifted, causing humanoid figures to emerge from the wood, along with a strangely familiar modern urban city-like landscape atop the surface.

There were skyscrapers, cars, mechs, and other technological innovations in what appeared to be a relatively scientifically advanced civilization. The wooden figures of people walking across the street were eerily familiar.

They wore t-shirts and jeans.

Some carried handbags with them.

Others carried gazed down at little flat rectangular boxes with wires sticking out of them and entering their ears.

Rui truly couldn’t help but freeze at the sight.

He knew that it was a depiction of an ancient civilization on Gaia, but it was terrifying how similar it was to the modern civilization he knew on Earth.

It reminded him of what he saw in the very epicenter of the Beast Domain when they first entered it.

It was a perfectly esoterified preservation of an ancient civilization, flash-fossilized on the spot with esoteric matter.

There were many differences, of course.

He didn’t recognize the languages, and he was relatively confident he would recognize any major Anglo-Saxon, Asian, or African language from Earth. Even if he wasn’t sure what it was, he would recognize them as being of Earth.

But these languages were alien to him.

The mechs were also out of place. The world that John Falken came from was not a world with mechs roaming the streets, and it begged the question as to what he was even looking at.